Shipping and packaging costs can greatly increase the cost of a lamp, among other products. Such costs are directly passed on from the manufacturers and retailers to the end consumer. Lamp shades are often delicate, and require a substantial amount of packing to ensure that they are not damaged during transport. After a retailer or consumer receives a shipment with a lamp shade, they often unpack the lamp shade and dispose of the packing material. While some packing materials can be recycled, retailers and consumers do not always recycle them. The disposal of these packing materials adds to the massive amount of garbage that is produced each year. It would therefore be beneficial to find a way to reduce the waste generated from shipping lamp shades.
Shipping and packaging costs are also affected by the size of the lamp shade. Because of a traditional lamp shade's shape, its shipping boxes are usually large and contain wasted space. This extra box volume adds to transportation and storage costs, and ultimately adds to the final sale price of the lamp shade. Thus, it would be beneficial to find a way to reduce the size of the lamp shade for shipping.
The prior art contains examples of collapsible lamp shades that can reduce the size of the lamp shade for transport and storage. Examples of such lamp shade assemblies include U.S. Pat. No. 3,142,446 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,772,992. Prior art collapsible lamp shades utilize self-supporting shades, removable rings, radial supports or vertical supports to maintain the shape of the shade. However, these prior art collapsible lamp shades are still shipped with packing material that is disposed of after they arrive at their destination, and do not attempt to repurpose any packaging material that accompanies the shade. Therefore, it would be an improvement in the art to further reduce the shipping cost and amount of garbage that is produced from shipping lamp shades and certain other flexible products.